Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Kasrkar here, coming to you with yet another battle report!Now, I completely forgot to post this about a month ago, so my memory of the game is a little bit rough. I myself was not in this game, it was between The Verderer's chaos and a friend of ours that will be referred to as Grandpa Rhino. Grandpa Rhino doesn't has only very recently thought of a paint scheme, and so his proxy-heavy space wolves appear as rainbow marines.

So, the game was annihilation 1500 points. Pitched battle was the deployment. Grandpa Rhino won the roll to go first, and took the first turn.

As much far as I can remember, the lists were...

Chaos:

-Sorcer w/ mark of slaanesh and lash

-10 berzerkers, 1 champion w/ power fist

-10 berzerkers, 1 plasma pistol

-10 Plague Marines, 2 meltaguns

-3 Rhinos with daemonic possession

-Vindicator

-2 obliterators

-2 obliterators

Wolves:

-Rune Priest, random funky stuff, jaws, termy armor

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-5 wolf guard w/ terminator armor, 1 cyclone

-5 wolf scouts, meltabombs

-5 wolf scouts, 2 meltaguns

-Land Speeder typhoon

-Land Speeder typhoon

-Vindicator

-Vindicator

The Verderer reserves everything, Grandpa Rhino spreads out slightly.

Top of Turn 1: Rainbow marines advance! Land speeders rush to the left side to try and box the Verderer in.

Bottom of Turn 1: Nada.

Top of Turn 2: Advanced even more, and popping smoke with vehicles in preparation for The Verderer's army to show up.

Bottom of Turn 2: A unit of obliterators deep strikes in, both rhinos with berzerkers and a sorcerer come in. Obliterators whiff, and fail to hurt the vindicator they teleported next to (see top picture). This would be the first of 3 snake eye rolls The Verderer would roll to penetrate with meltas that day.

Top of 3: Neither wolf scout units come in. Grandpa Rhino pegs one of the obliterators with a meltagun, but misses with his vindicator. Random shooting shakes/stuns both of the Verderer's rhinos and blows the bolter off of the one with the sorcerer.

Bottom of 3: The rest of The Verderer's army comes in. The lonely obliterator takes the weapon off of Grandpa Rhino's vindicator, some stuff misses, and the other obliterators take down a land speeder after coming from the flank.

Top of 4: Wolf scouts come in, the meltagun ones epic fail and miss, the meltabomb ones manage to destroy a weapon on the vindicator and immobilize it. Grey hunters melt the remaining obliterator. Razorbacks wreck the plague marine rhino and the one without the sorcerer. The sorcerer's rhino is immobilized.

Bottom of 4: Both squads of wolf scouts die to counter charges, yet another land speeder crashes to the obliterators.

Top of 5: Grandpa Rhino's shooting is ineffective, not much happens. Plague marines just barely dodge a demolisher shell.

Bottom of 5: Shooting is ineffective.

Game ends.

Score is Grandpa Rhino: 3, The Verderer: 4. Victory for chaos!

Very close game, and if the game had gone on, it could have gone badly. Talking to Grandpa Rhino about the game, he says this: "Never ever take wolf scouts ever."

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Hello, everyone, The Verderer here with some interesting tactics that you may have thought of...But probably not. It all comes down to this: Chaos is considered to be a "fighty" army. Khorne Berzerkers, Demon Princes, Chaos Terminators, etc. are all very fighty, and are therefore seen on a lot of gaming tables. But does it have to be that way?

The current metagame calls for lots of high-strength, low AP shots, and plenty of vehicles. As you can guess, this is not Chaos Space Marines' strength, which leads to many people assuming that they are useless, and either selling their models or proxying them as Wolves or Blood Angels. However, I believe that Chaos can keep up with the metagame. Not with Lash, not with Berzerkers, but with shooting power.

So, in a list like this, you will, of course, look straight at Obliterators. They are an obvious choice for shooty lists, seeing as they have lascannons, and, more importantly, the ever-feared plasma cannon. Two units of these are invaluable in a list like this. Why only two? You shall see...

Next up is troops. You're going to want troops who can shovel out an incredible amount of shots, at pretty long range. Solution? Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters. A unit of 7 can send out an impressive 21 shots when standing still, or 14 shots while on the move, both at 24" range. That's not even mentioning the Blastmaster, which can pin enemy units, giving you another round of firing. Very good in my book, we will want to load up on these.

Next up is HQ. Who to lead a shooty army? A Tzeentch demon prince immediately springs to mind, but the enemy is probably going to reach your line at some point, let's face it. Therefore, you will need something to counter attack with. My solution to that is simple: Chaos Lord with a Demon Weapon, perhaps with some terminators or Berzerkers for a counter attack. Cheap and effective, just the way I like it.

Now, with some points left, lets look back at the Heavy Support section. With one slot left, I see one last obvious choice: A Defiler. This beast will be able to take out entire marine units with one shot, and handle itself well in combat. And, if the battlecannon should be destroyed, you can use its secondary weapons, or use it as a wall to block enemy units.

So, piecing it all together, the list would look something like this:

Chaos lord w/ Demon Weapon, Terminator Armor

5 Terminators w/ Icon of Slaanesh, Reaper Autocannon, chainfist

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

Defiler w/ Havoc Launcher

2 obliterators

2 obliterators

total: 1,750 points

Pretty much, castle up! The noise marines should be in front, then the terminators behind them, and then finally the defiler and oblits. In the case of objectives, advance slowly, and keep firing, and/or Deepstrike oblits.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

So, today, I'm going to talk about a subject that's very close to my heart, and I'm sure it's very close to many of yours. That subject is: Luck.

Luck is 50% of wargaming. That is what must be excepted right off the bat. You can make up the best tactics, the cheesiest army list, or exploit as many loopholes as you want, but if the dice aren't with you, then there's nothing you can do about it.

There are two schools of thought on this subject: The first one is the logical, sane one. First off in this is that the dice, despite what the demotivational poster above might say, do not hate you. They are simply little cubes with small dots indented in them. They might roll a 5, they might roll a 2, it's completely down to chance.

As it happens, this theory is not very fun, which leads to the second theory, which involves contact between wargamers and fate. Every wargamer I know has some sort of superstition . Kasrkar, for instance, thinks that putting his super ugly pink dice around a unit in the movement phase will make them roll well in the shooting phase. I, on the other hand, regularly sacrifice spare HQ models to the dice gods, in the hopes that they will take pity upon me, and bless my dice with 6's galore.

Another belief that those in our gaming club hold is that some gamers are predestined from birth to either roll badly, or well. There are two branches of this, as well. The first branch deals with the extremes of dice rolling. One person I know, Sam, is the only person I have ever met who can roll 18 dice, and have 14 of those come up as 1s. Carter, on the other hand, can roll 5s and 6s like you wouldn't believe. On the downside, however, if he loses a combat, his unit almost always fails the subsequent Morale check!

The other branch is more exact, that players roll better or worse for different dice rolls. For instance: I will seize the initiative from you. Every time. There is nothing you can do about it. I also cannot make Power Armor saves to save my life. My poor chaos marines have a bad habit of dying to lasgun fire, because I can't roll above a 2. Xander, on the other hand, makes 3++s like nobody you will ever see. He believes that this stems from his yelling of "Bob Marley!" before making an important dice roll.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy new year, everyone! For my first post of the year, I would like to look at some of the Dark Eldar characters who are getting overlooked with all the scary stuff like Haemonculi and Lelith.

Lady Aurelia Malys:

At first glance, she looks decent, with an Archon's statline and a less dangerous Djinn blade. But it's when you compare her to a basic Archon that you see the magic. Firstly, she and her unit are immune to psychic powers. Personally, I would take her for just that. With all of the scary Lash of Submission and, even worse, Murderous Hurricane psychic powers that are floating around out there, she can lead her unit through all of those purple glowing whips and tropical storms. The regular Archon doesn't even have an option like that.

Then you come to the 4++ invulnerable save. Quite honestly, I almost like this more than the Shadow Field, seeing as I always fail that 2++ as soon as I possibly can. Add this to the fact that you can redeploy up to three units before the game, even putting them in reserve, you can really bait an enemy and leave them stranded.

So to compare her to an archon:

Archon w/ Djinn blade, Ghostplate armor - 90 points

Yeah, for 40 points more you can get the Lady? I'm going for that.

Baron Sathonyx:

A little less impressive than the Lady, still very good for only costing just over 100 points. He even has a shadowfield! The way I see it, he's sort of like Belial, in the fact that he, in himself, isn't terribly amazing, but for his points he's great, and he makes already good units troops, that being Hellions in the case of the Baron.

So, what does he have? Well, he gives his unit at least a 6++ cover save at all times, though for the baron himself, he has his shadowfield. On the charge, he will also have 4 strength 6 attacks, not including combat drugs, so he will be rather effective against vehicles as well as light infantry.

Also, a note on the Bones of the Seer: Choosing deployment zones isn't great, but it can help, if you want your wolfpack of fast vehicles some extra cover.

Finally, we come to Kheradruakh the Decapitator. At ten more points than Lady Malys, he isn't as good of a choice, not in the same way, at least. He is meant to be a character hunter, and no mistake, but he may actually be better used to destroy MSU armies, with a power weapon and Strength 5. Another thing that helps him is that he has the Baleblast and starts out with a pain token, so that's 2 strength 4 shots per turn already.

A word on deployment: Kheradruakh must always be kept in reserve. However, he can deploy anywhere on the battlefield, at least one inch away from an enemy model. I would personally put him in cover, and then fleet out and kill an unwary small unit, before shrinking back into cover again. This is especially good if you want to take down that Manticore in the enemy's backfield, or the long fangs, and so on.